A new barn and new hope rise from Classy Lane’s burned rubble
PUSLINCH, ONT.— Sugar Sam bobbed his head up and down. He stuck his tongue out.
“He’s very playful,” trainer Kris DiCenzo said about the four-year-old standardbred race horse.
Sam looked at ease in his stall among dozens of other top-notch recent arrivals getting ready for race day in a brand-new barn at Classy Lane Stables.
Barn No. 6 rose from the charred rubble of Barn No. 1, which burned down four months ago, in a blaze that killed 43 horses. Last week, many of the trainers who witnessed the horror moved back to Classy Lane with new horses.
DiCenzo and his partner, Chantal Mitchell, from Hamilton, lost several horses in the fire.
He has trouble finding words to describe the lingering grief.
“To me, for them to go through that, how they passed, is unbearable,” said DiCenzo, a 20-year veteran of the industry.
News of the horses’ grim deaths sent shock waves of sorrow around the world. Donations and condolences poured in from everywhere.
Barb and Jamie Millier, Classy Lane’s owners, are grateful for that.
“At the end of the day, nobody really lost a job and everybody got to carry on in the business they love so much. And, at the end of the day, I guess that’s what really matters,” Jamie said.
They also praised their insurance company for quickly delivering on “quite a bit” of the cost to clean up and rebuild — estimated at about $500,000.
Classy Lane, at 6923 Concession 1, is considered one of the finest standardbred training grounds in Canada. The Milliers built the $4-million harness-racing facility in 2003.
The new barn is up just as horses come from the United States to train for this season’s Ontario Sire Stakes.
“That was critical,” said Barb, 58. Any later would have spelled disaster. “We’d lose them for the season.”
The Milliers are still waiting for investigators to report back on what exactly caused the fire. It was believed to be an electrical problem.
In the meantime, Barb and Jamie are considering an array of safety options, including sprinklers, heat detectors and smoke alarms.
Dust and temperature changes in barns can trigger false alarms — which makes getting it just right a finicky process.
Other measures include arc switches, which guard against power surges; taping over radio on-off buttons to make sure they’re unplugged; equipping clothes dryers with timers so they automatically turn off. Doors will have swing closers, simple devices that could slow the spread of a blaze just enough, said Jamie, 61.
“Ten minutes could mean the difference between life and death for all those animals.”
The Milliers lost a horse in the fire, too: Jewels for Rose. The snowbirds were in Florida when they learned of the blaze.
“If the barn burned down and all the horses got out, I’d still be sitting in Florida,” Jamie said a few days after the fire.
Now, when he rounds the gravel track at the harness-racing training facility and gazes at the new barn, he’s incredulous.
“It’s just like it was a dream,” Jamie said. “It’s hard to fathom it happened.” But it did. Shortly after the fire, straw was placed overtop the blackened rubble in an attempt to conceal the grim aftermath. Nobody at Classy Lane will be completely free of the terrible scene, says Barb.
“You’ll never forget, but you have to move on.”
The first few months were tough, but she found ways to handle the pain.
“I took up adult colouring,” Barb said with a chuckle.
She has a tattoo on her left calf: a tearful horse’s profile, an angel wing, “Barn 1,” and “43” nestled in a heart.
Signs with the names of the dead horses adorn five trees flanking the lane that leads to the stables.
They’re coming down, said Jamie. It’s not good for the staff.
“They don’t need to drive by that every day,” he said.
Instead, a memorial garden behind Barn No. 6 will memorialize the horses. Greer Design Group organized companies to donate time and labour for the garden.
“We saved the burnt sign that said Barn No. 1,” said Jamie.
That remnant will be part of the memorial. The names of the dead horses will be listed on two headstones.
A circular rim of bricks embraces a young oak at the garden’s centre.
“An oak tree for strength,” Barb said.